BRITISH taxpayers could face a colossal £22billion bill for bailing out the crisis-hit euro after the Government quietly doubled our share of a global emergency fund.

A document slipped out in Parliament revealed the UK’s total loan to the International Monetary Fund is to soar by £9.2billion.

The extra liability comes on top of £12.5billion in emergency cash that Britain has pledged to support the Irish, Greek and ­Portuguese economies in the European Union’s drive to save the single currency.

It means that every household in the UK is now facing a potential bill of nearly £800 for propping up the euro.

The massive hike in Britain’s international financial liabilities was announced without fanfare in an obscure paper published at Westminster late on Monday. Critics were appalled to find that taxpayers were on the hook for even more cash to bail out the EU’s flagship project.

Treasury officials last night said the loans increase was agreed in 2009 under Labour

The draft document shows the UK’s loan to the IMF rising from the current level of £10.5billion to £19.7billion.

Tory MP Douglas Carswell, who uncovered the move, said: “This is an extra £9.2billion to help the IMF do something it was never set up to do, which is to bail out the vanity project of the EU elite.

“The IMF is being called on by the EU to defy economic gravity. Under this Government, the taxpayers’ overall liabilities have gone up by more than £20billion.

“That is enough to cut the basic rate of income tax by around two pence.”

Mr Carswell dismissed Treasury claims that the cash was “contingent liability” rather than hard taxpayers’ money.

“Try telling your bank manager that your mortgage is a contingent liability rather than real money and see how he reacts,” said the MP.

Matthew Sinclair of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “British taxpayers are becoming steadily more exposed to the financial failure of the euro.

“If Greece defaults relatively soon, there will be a huge threat to the finances of all the international institutions that sunk money into the bailout.

“Our politicians have misused taxpayers’ money by letting us get dragged into this disaster.”

Treasury officials last night said the loans increase was agreed in 2009 under Labour.